How do you cope knowing that your parents will die one day?

25 comments

1. I’ve lost too many friends of my own age to worry about my parents. Vet life. CPTSD, etc

2. Everyone has to die one day… there will be grief, all you can do at that point in time is cherish the good memories. So I would say build good memories while you have them so when they are not around you have so many memories to make you smile and know they lived a good life with you.

3. By the time my parents die, they will have lived at least 8 full and healthy decades. 9, with a little luck.

   I’ll certainly miss them, though.

4. You accept it, you recognize that you are their living legacy, and you live in a way that would make them proud, and that you yourself can be proud of.

5. Enjoy the time you have with them. My Dad passed away when I was 14. Being candid, there is a lot I would voluntarily give away so I could have a drink with him now. I wish he could see what I’ve done with myself, that the sacrifices he made were worth it.

6. I don’t let it be at the forefront of my mind. It happens when it happens.

7. To a far easier degree than needing to cope knowing **I** would die one day

8. My mom is stage 4, a few months to live max, I’ve been crying my eyes out for the past couple of months. It hurts like hell, knowing she’s in so much pain is the hardest thing ever, knowing she’s not going to be around to see her grandchildren grow is heartbreaking, not being able to help in any way is crippling.
   I guess you don’t cope, you just stay afloat, survive.

9. I don’t

10. I’d feel more at ease if they had a quick painless death. I worry more that i wont feel bad about it.

11. Both of mine are already dead.

    You just have to spend as much time with them as possible while they are here.

    And when they die, they die, and you mourne.

    You don’t need to cope with something that could be 10, 20, 40 years down the road.

    Live for today!

12. Treat them well while they are here. When their time comes you will feel more at peace and can avoid the guilt a lot of us feel about not spending as much time with loved ones as we could have.

13. It seems highly unlikely that they’d both die on the same day. Not impossible but unlikely. It’s probably going to be two different days.

14. My father passed before I was born and because of that, death was ever present in our house. We learned it was just another stage, and we still celebrated his birthday, talked to him, all of that. So when my mother died, it hurt, and I miss her, but it didn’t hit too hard because I still have her. I have everything she taught me, good and bad, and all the love. How can I deny her a well-deserved rest, plus eternity with my father and brother? That would be selfish.

15. Children burying (or cremating, etc) their parents is the natural way of things. Parents burying their children is far worse.

16. Parents? How do you face you will die? Your friends, everyone you know? Your kids, their kids, your dog, everyone you’ve ever seen. Mortality is a hard thing to face.

17. My dad has had severe dementia for the last 6 years and was barely coherent before that. I’m in my early 30s and haven’t had a legitimate in depth conversation with him since I was in high school.. I’d be relieved if he finally died. It would be a mercy.

18. Everyone will die some day, that’s just a fact. I worry less about that and more about spending quality time with them while they are alive.

19. I cope by being with them when ever I can an helping out whenever I can. I’m my parents only son an the biggest in the family so I try an make sure that if there’s yard work they’re doing I’m there to help

20. Every once in a while, I try to imagine what I will wish I had done when that day comes. And then I go and do that thing.

21. Same way I cope with anyone dying, including myself. Death is inevitable, and it is a waste of the time I have, be it another day or another hundred years, to waste even a single moment in fearing the coming void.

22. Is this what you would want your children fretting about?

23. It really stresses me out.

24. Be caring. be loving. and tell them.

    Miss my mum n dad like heck. (passed 1 n 7 years ago at a right old age but its still upsetting)

25. Quite well actually. Closure will come eventually.

    My in laws on the other hand…… I cried as much as my wife when her dad died. Her mom is more of a mother to me than my own.